island of Phuket. We watched polar bears in wire
muzzles ballroom dancing across the ice under a
big top in Russia and teenage boys on the Ama-
zon River snapping selfies with baby sloths.
Most tourists who enjoy these encounters don’tknow that the adult tigers may be declawed,
drugged, or both. Or that there are always cubs for
tourists to snuggle with because the cats are speed
bred and the cubs are taken from their mothers
just days after birth. Or that the elephants give
rides and perform tricks without harming people
only because they’ve been “broken” as babies and
taught to fear the bullhook. Or that the Amazo-
nian sloths taken illegally from the jungle often
die within weeks of being put in captivity.
As we traveled to performance pits and hold-ing pens on three continents and in the Hawaiian
Islands, asking questions about how animals are
treated and getting answers that didn’t always
add up, it became clear how methodically and
systematically animal suffering is concealed.
The wildlife tourism industry caters to peo-ple’s love of animals but often seeks to maximize
profits by exploiting animals from birth to death.
The industry’s economy depends largely on peo-
ple believing that the animals they’re paying to
watch or ride or feed are having fun too.
It succeeds partly because tourists—in unfa-miliar settings and eager to have a positive expe-
rience—typically don’t consider the possibility
that they’re helping to hurt animals. Social media
adds to the confusion: Oblivious endorsements
from friends and trendsetters legitimize attrac-
tions before a traveler ever gets near an animal.
There has been some recognition of socialmedia’s role in the problem. In December 2017,
after a National Geographic investigative report
on harmful wildlife tourism in Amazonian Brazil
and Peru, Instagram introduced a feature: Users
who click or search one of dozens of hashtags,
such as #slothselfie and #tigercubselfie, now get
a pop-up warning that the content they’re view-
ing may be harmful to animals.E
VERYONE FINDS Olga Barantseva on
Instagram. “Photographer from Russia.
Photographing dreams,” her bio reads.
She meets clients for woodland photo
shoots with captive wild animals just
outside Moscow.
For her 18th birthday, Sasha Belova treated
herself to a session with Barantseva—and a pack
of wolves. “It was my dream,” she says as she
fidgets with her hair, which had been styled that
morning. “Wolves are wild and dangerous.” The
wolves are kept in small cages at a petting zoo
when not participating in photo shoots.
The Kravtsov family hired Barantseva to
take their first professional family photos—all
five family members, shivering and smiling
in the birch forest, joined by a bear
named Stepan.
Barantseva has been photographing
people and wild animals together for
six years. She “woke up as a star,” she
says, in 2015, when a couple of interna-
tional media outlets found her online.
Her audience has exploded to more
than 80,000 followers worldwide. “I
want to show harmony between peo-
ple and animals,” she says.
On a raw fall day, under a crown of
golden birch leaves on a hill that overlooks a
frigid lake, two-and-a-half-year-old Alexander
Levin, dressed in a hooded bumblebee sweater,
timidly holds Stepan’s paw.
The bear’s owners, Yury and Svetlana Pan-
teleenko, ply their star with food—tuna fish
mixed with oatmeal—to get him to approach
the boy. Snap: It looks like a tender friendship.
The owners toss grapes to Stepan to get him to
open his mouth wide. Snap: The bear looks as
if he’s smiling.
The Panteleenkos constantly move Stepan,
adjusting his paws, feeding him, and positioning
Alexander as Barantseva, pink-haired, bundled
in jeans and a parka, captures each moment.
Snap: A photo goes to her Instagram feed. A boy
and a bear in golden Russian woods—a picture
straight out of a fairy tale. It’s a contemporary
twist on a long-standing Russian tradition of
exploiting bears for entertainment.
Another day in the same forest, Kirsten and I
join 12 young women who have nearly identicalTHE INDUSTRY CATERS TO
PEOPLE’S LOVE OF ANIMALS
BUT OFTEN SEEKS TO
MAXIMIZE PROFITS BY
EXPLOITING THOSE ANIMALS
FROM BIRTH TO DEATH.62 NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC